”To depict the world in Wan’s time, the creative team drew inspiration from ancient and traditional East Asian ink wash paintings and woodblock prints for the environments, color palettes, and stylizations of the elements”

ok this i am interested aboutno matter how shit the plot could be at least there'll be some interesting visuals to go along with it

Tenshi Nova wrote:I wonder if they'll even have a Book 3. TLA had a book for each element Aang had to learn. Korra only has troubles with air and her spiritual side right? So LoK only having 2 books may be it. Unless I'm forgetting something.

They already have planned 2 more books, with Korra wrapping up on the fourth.

Mon-Kitsune wrote:If faced with mud, wouldn't both a water bender AND an earth bender have equal facility handling it? it's just as much water as earth.

I created a X-Men-style fan-fiction wherein the characters who control elements (i.e. Bobby Drake, John Allerdyce, Ororo, Avalanche) are able to grow and use other elements due to the realization that their abilities are really just a form of telekinesis that is restricted by a block due to psychological preference. Actually, thus far, it has only be introduced in theory, but Iceman has been seen to use water (in my fan-fiction) for purposes other than freezing.

I imagine lava handles much more like water than fire (and since it is molten rock, an earthbender should be able to do something with it too).

There is no part of lava that is like water. I would stop watching the show if a waterbender could bend lava. An earthbender could do it though.

Waterbending can freeze water though I am still a little unsure exactly how.

Freezing occurs by stopping all molecules in place. A waterbender's utter control over the element would allow this to occur no matter the temperature.

ice, I imagine it handles more like earth.

There is no part of ice that is like earth. Unless we're talking about bending the "periodic table of elements" (since oxygen and hydrogen can be solidified and are technically earth elements as are all other elements) which is a different thing entirely.

I just love how people put commas, in places they so obviously, do not belong.

I don't know about you, but I love the Young Justice animated series.So I became the 44,901st signer of this petition to bring the series back.

Mon-Kitsune wrote:If faced with mud, wouldn't both a water bender AND an earth bender have equal facility handling it? it's just as much water as earth.

I created a X-Men-style fan-fiction wherein the characters who control elements (i.e. Bobby Drake, John Allerdyce, Ororo, Avalanche) are able to grow and use other elements due to the realization that their abilities are really just a form of telekinesis that is restricted by a block due to psychological preference. Actually, thus far, it has only be introduced in theory, but Iceman has been seen to use water (in my fan-fiction) for purposes other than freezing.

I imagine lava handles much more like water than fire (and since it is molten rock, an earthbender should be able to do something with it too).

There is no part of lava that is like water. I would stop watching the show if a waterbender could bend lava. An earthbender could do it though.

Waterbending can freeze water though I am still a little unsure exactly how.

Freezing occurs by stopping all molecules in place. A waterbender's utter control over the element would allow this to occur no matter the temperature.

ice, I imagine it handles more like earth.

There is no part of ice that is like earth. Unless we're talking about bending the "periodic table of elements" (since oxygen and hydrogen can be solidified and are technically earth elements as are all other elements) which is a different thing entirely.

Lava is similar to water in that it is a liquid and ice is similar to earth in that it is a solid. So lava probably is handled best if you know how to deal with moving a liquid (which water benders are good at) and ice if you are used to moving a sold (which is very earth). It would be similar to the fact that, if you were dealing with steam it would probably handle in a matter more like air than water. Oh and there is technically a contradiction in what you said. The technical definition of temperature is the average kinetic energy of the molecules of a substance (as opposed to heat which is a function of energy). Stop the molecules in place, and the substance is at absolute zero, regardless of the amount of heat it has. Or as another example how about a liquid that is not water containing, say oil. or how about mercury? Water benders dominion, earth's, both's or neither? Come to think of it, the way metal benders handle metal has a bit of liquid control in it too, since the way it is used is often more "pull and stretch" than moving lumps.

"For I have heard the Song of War, and to me, it sounds just like "Please, Mister Custer.""

Cogito Ergot Sum, "I think there is something wrong with this rye bread." (Aplogies to Seafrol.)

I believe the Avatar universe goes off of a more spiritual side to the elements. They feel the energy that comes from their respective elements, and becomes able to control them. You guys are going into a more scientific point of view, with out mentioning the Spirit World? It changes up the physics in the world. Just my opinion, if elements could cross over like the examples you guys have given, then the series itself would become much more complex. Why not take a look into the comic? I forgot the exact things that were mentioned, but there was a guy that could shadowbend, to my memory at least.

Mon-Kitsune wrote: Oh and there is technically a contradiction in what you said. The technical definition of temperature is the average kinetic energy of the molecules of a substance (as opposed to heat which is a function of energy). Stop the molecules in place, and the substance is at absolute zero, regardless of the amount of heat it has. Or as another example how about a liquid that is not water containing, say oil. or how about mercury? Water benders dominion, earth's, both's or neither? Come to think of it, the way metal benders handle metal has a bit of liquid control in it too, since the way it is used is often more "pull and stretch" than moving lumps.

Yo, query, what is energy in this little spiel you've got going here, bro? Because as far as I can recall about physics, heat is not a function of energy: heat is a direct form of energy. As in, all heat is simply motion: a piece from the total degree of quantum uncertainty in a given system. Unless you want to get into zero-point energy from elementary particles... but they are still moving and can be changed into other states.

The more heat in an observable elemental molecule, the more uncertainty, hence why as temperatures go up, solid shapes as we understand them are reduced to the basics of how their quantum system functions. With mass, you get spheroids as a result of gravity because all the shit melts. Without mass, you get a wave-function that just shoots out until it is diminished by contact with other wave-functions, unless there's enough mass in another system that are reactive to the massless wave-function. Light bending around black holes, that sort of thing.

...But I don't think that the four elements in Korra's world deal with those really specific things, just what the observer of the system perceives. As in, relativity kicks in and waterbenders can only deal in temperatures they themselves understand. To them, they aren't Bose-Einstein condensate states of matter, or supersolids, so, understanding the simple relationship between picking up a chunk of ice and watching it melt without any other apparent interactions. They recognize the transition between states, thus can do it.

Earthbending requires willpower to say "fuck you guys i'm moving this solid state", so I would assume magma would be really difficult to get under earthbender control given the amount of heat undermining the certainty involved with how they see the world. Avatars, however, get cheat codes with the understanding of the relationships between the elements better than anyone else. Only prodigies, the enlightened, and/or geniuses would allow for such complicated synergy, as with Iroh's redirection of lightning being able to understand the "fluidity" of lightning.

Mon-Kitsune wrote: Oh and there is technically a contradiction in what you said. The technical definition of temperature is the average kinetic energy of the molecules of a substance (as opposed to heat which is a function of energy). Stop the molecules in place, and the substance is at absolute zero, regardless of the amount of heat it has. Or as another example how about a liquid that is not water containing, say oil. or how about mercury? Water benders dominion, earth's, both's or neither? Come to think of it, the way metal benders handle metal has a bit of liquid control in it too, since the way it is used is often more "pull and stretch" than moving lumps.

Yo, query, what is energy in this little spiel you've got going here, bro? Because as far as I can recall about physics, heat is not a function of energy: heat is a direct form of energy. As in, all heat is simply motion: a piece from the total degree of quantum uncertainty in a given system. Unless you want to get into zero-point energy from elementary particles... but they are still moving and can be changed into other states.

The more heat in an observable elemental molecule, the more uncertainty, hence why as temperatures go up, solid shapes as we understand them are reduced to the basics of how their quantum system functions. With mass, you get spheroids as a result of gravity because all the shit melts. Without mass, you get a wave-function that just shoots out until it is diminished by contact with other wave-functions, unless there's enough mass in another system that are reactive to the massless wave-function. Light bending around black holes, that sort of thing.

...But I don't think that the four elements in Korra's world deal with those really specific things, just what the observer of the system perceives. As in, relativity kicks in and waterbenders can only deal in temperatures they themselves understand. To them, they aren't Bose-Einstein condensate states of matter, or supersolids, so, understanding the simple relationship between picking up a chunk of ice and watching it melt without any other apparent interactions. They recognize the transition between states, thus can do it.

Earthbending requires willpower to say "fuck you guys i'm moving this solid state", so I would assume magma would be really difficult to get under earthbender control given the amount of heat undermining the certainty involved with how they see the world. Avatars, however, get cheat codes with the understanding of the relationships between the elements better than anyone else. Only prodigies, the enlightened, and/or geniuses would allow for such complicated synergy, as with Iroh's redirection of lightning being able to understand the "fluidity" of lightning.

You are absolutely correct. I was merely pointing out that the statement that a a waterbender could stop the motion of the molecules of water "no matter the temperature" made no sense, you can't stop the molecular motion of something and keep the temperature the same. I've always sort of assumed waterbenders freeze by yanking heat out of the water and either dumping it elsewhere or holding it in themselves until it can dissipate ( so if you had a really sensitive measuring device, when a waterbender froze water, their own temperature would go up by a little (which may mean there is a finite amount of water that can be frozen at once without risking personal damage from overheating).

All I was trying to get at is that, at the fringes, there are a lot of places where the elements sort of blend, so that knowledge of how other benders control their arts comes in handy. Aas you said, an earth bender faced with lava (since magma only stays magma as long as it is underground, using it would require an addional rare and special skill, bending something you can't actually see) would be on unfamiliar ground because he's mostly used to dealing with a solid substance that keeps it's shape, oozy molten rock would feel funny. But a firebender probably doesn't have an easy time with it either, since their used to working with something pretty close to massless. Maybe that's why most of the lava bending we saw was in the hands of geniuses (like you said) or the Avatar (who as you said has built in "cheat codes" to the interactions, and so has an easier time of it) I hope that makes a little more sense (I really shouldn't be trying to do this at 1:00AM with no sleep for two days g>)

"For I have heard the Song of War, and to me, it sounds just like "Please, Mister Custer.""

Cogito Ergot Sum, "I think there is something wrong with this rye bread." (Aplogies to Seafrol.)

Mon-Kitsune wrote:I was merely pointing out that you can't stop the molecular motion of something and keep the temperature the same.

I was gonna be all like, "WHAT? Isn't that what I just said?" until BeeAre pulled this response out of you. Obviously, you have to realize when I said "no matter the temperature", I meant "starting temperature."

At the fringes, there are a lot of places where the elements sort of blend.

I don't disagree with this, but I still have to argue that there is a substantial divide between lava and any other liquid substance. When the kinetic energy in lava is removed, it becomes rock, obsidian, and ash. There's no reversing that process without adding extreme heat. Any other liquid substance that has the capacity to freeze and harden can be unfrozen.As for oil, crude oil is composed of petrol, tar, dissolved gases and kerosene also known as petroleum. Its residue can be made into fuels, wax, grease, and asphalt. All oils are produced by living organisms like plants (and many would consider our entire planet a living organism) as even mineral oils are derived of fossilized algae. It might appear reasonable, going off of a waterbender's bloodbending subcategory, that waterbenders would be able to control oils, not because they are liquid but because were once part of a living organism. However, while bloodbending can be achieved due to water existing in the bloodstream, there is no water in oil.Mercury, even in its liquid state, is merely melted heavy metal. As the case goes, an earth bender would be capable of wielding this substance with metal-bending. Avatar has already proven that earthbenders do not require earth to be in a solid state as they can even bend sand, dirt, and soil.

My understanding of bending is that it has nothing to do with a material's physical state, solid, liquid, or gas. While an airbender could whip sand and dirt or water into the air with enough wind force and potentially attempt to direct this at a target, you know that's not the same as bending that element. It's my understanding that a bender's proficiency depends on the weight of the substance. Firebender's are in the lightest weight class as they bend raw energy into flames and lightning but are unable to wrangle significant force, instead relying on the extreme heat (or shock) of their attacks. Airbenders follow them, capable of creating tornado's from the air we breathe but unable to form the raw kinetic force required for raising temperature. Waterbenders and Earthbenders are obviously last. Waterbenders can bend water in any form, able to freeze the liquid to a solid and even bend mist and superheated steam. This is because overall weight technically does not change no matter what form a material takes. The only noticible change from solid to liquid to gas is dissipation which creates the illusion of lighter weight. By far, I would have to say that earthbender's are the most powerful of them all as being able to bend earth in any form, they can bend burning earth to substitute firebending, bend mud to substitute waterbending, and bend sand to substitute airbending, not to mention bending metal.

I just love how people put commas, in places they so obviously, do not belong.

I don't know about you, but I love the Young Justice animated series.So I became the 44,901st signer of this petition to bring the series back.

At the fringes, there are a lot of places where the elements sort of blend.

I don't disagree with this, but I still have to argue that there is a substantial divide between lava and any other liquid substance. When the kinetic energy in lava is removed, it becomes rock, obsidian, and ash. There's no reversing that process without adding extreme heat. Any other liquid substance that has the capacity to freeze and harden can be unfrozen.

I'm not really sure I'm getting your differentiation between lava and other liquids.If you mean it is harder to re-melt rock into lava than it is to re-melt ice into water, sure. But that really shouldn't put in in a completely different class. EVERYTHING has it's own melting point, be it water, sulfur, sugar, or whatever. Some things are harder to melt some are easier, but is a scale, not an absolute. We're just used to a world where most of the things that melt at what we would consider normal temperatures are water based (their usually water with something else in them. Pure metallic gallium melts at about 86 Fahrenheit so melting that can actually just be done by holding it in your hand (actually, I imagine gallium would be great for a metal bender since the point melting is so closed to body temp so it could basically be melted and re-solidified with very little energy expenditure. Obsidian would actually be a tricky issue since, as an amorphous solid (basically, a glass) it technically is still a liquid even at room temperature (a very, very thick one, but the thing about glass flowing over time is technically true) MAKING obsidian would probably be hard for a bender since it requires the lava cool off FAST (slow and the minerals re-crystalize). But actually handling high temperatures seems to be well in part for Korra's time period. It's shown they have platinum (and smelt it to a level of purity that makes it unbendable) at that as I recall 1. almost never is found in native (naturally pure) form so they have to be able to smelt it out (and it seems most industrial melting in Korra's world is done via firebenders. and 2. melts around 325 Celsius (a bit higher than lava. Melting rock may be hard but I don't think it is at all impossible.

Mercen-X wrote:As for oil, crude oil is composed of petrol, tar, dissolved gases and kerosene also known as petroleum. Its residue can be made into fuels, wax, grease, and asphalt. All oils are produced by living organisms like plants (and many would consider our entire planet a living organism) as even mineral oils are derived of fossilized algae. It might appear reasonable, going off of a waterbender's bloodbending subcategory, that waterbenders would be able to control oils, not because they are liquid but because were once part of a living organism. However, while bloodbending can be achieved due to water existing in the bloodstream, there is no water in oil.

Actually I wasn't necessarily thinking of mineral oil first. Korra's world certainly uses it (assuming their cars and machines run on the same sort of internal combustion engines ours do) but in their world it's probably a fairly recent innovation. My first thought was bending things like vegetable oil, which the people of the Avatar world are probably a LOT more familiar with (since their cuisines have a lot of Asian derivations (different one's for each nation, but they are still mostly Asian in origin) I imagine that stir frying and deep frying are big parts of a lot of their cuisines, so soybean oil and other veggies oils (since Airbenders are sort of Buddhist like, I've always imagined them as eating a lot of camellia (tea seed) oil, for more or less the same reason Asian Buddhists do.) and are much more readily available.

Mercen-X wrote:My understanding of bending is that it has nothing to do with a material's physical state, solid, liquid, or gas. While an airbender could whip sand and dirt or water into the air with enough wind force and potentially attempt to direct this at a target, you know that's not the same as bending that element. It's my understanding that a bender's proficiency depends on the weight of the substance. Firebender's are in the lightest weight class as they bend raw energy into flames and lightning but are unable to wrangle significant force, instead relying on the extreme heat (or shock) of their attacks. Airbenders follow them, capable of creating tornado's from the air we breathe but unable to form the raw kinetic force required for raising temperature. Waterbenders and Earthbenders are obviously last. Waterbenders can bend water in any form, able to freeze the liquid to a solid and even bend mist and superheated steam. This is because overall weight technically does not change no matter what form a material takes. The only noticible change from solid to liquid to gas is dissipation which creates the illusion of lighter weight. By far, I would have to say that earthbender's are the most powerful of them all as being able to bend earth in any form, they can bend burning earth to substitute firebending, bend mud to substitute waterbending, and bend sand to substitute airbending, not to mention bending metal.

No argument, though benders do seem to have the ability to ignore gravity an awful lot. Waterbenders seem to have no trouble keeping blobs of water and ice suspended in the air, earth benders make their rocks hover before the send them flying and Noatak was even able (in his training montage) to lift a whole pack of orca wolves off the ground.

"For I have heard the Song of War, and to me, it sounds just like "Please, Mister Custer.""

Cogito Ergot Sum, "I think there is something wrong with this rye bread." (Aplogies to Seafrol.)

I don't mean to imply an object or element's physical weight as we understand it in any way affects a bender's ability to manipulate it. As someone mentioned (Mir@k), bending is mostly spiritual. Gravity may not be the factor that affects bending but rather there is a spiritual weight separation between the elements.

To clarify my theories in one concise statement: I believe that a waterbender capable of bending lava would have to be at a stage where they could bend nearly anything thus may as well be the Avatar or Class 5 mutant a la Jean Grey.

This is due to my above statement about the spiritual weight class of benders and their respective elements. For a firebender to bend lava, he would be relying on the kinetic energy of the heat already present to drive the lava. An earthbender would manipulate the melted earth (minerals that compose rock and metal) of which the lava is formed. There is no interjection for a waterbender, least of all not just because it is in a liquid state.

I just love how people put commas, in places they so obviously, do not belong.

I don't know about you, but I love the Young Justice animated series.So I became the 44,901st signer of this petition to bring the series back.